A Remembrance: Nola Love 12/1986 - 12/19/1998
Twelve years ago this month a puppy was born in rural North Carolina. She got her glossy black coat from the Labrador Retriever who fathered her. From her Springer Spaniel mother she got a softness that showed best in contrast to a purebred Lab; a certain floppiness in her ears, a roundness in her head, a curl to her coat and a slight upward curve in her tail. Like many lab mixes, and in particular like other Lab/Springer Spaniel mixes we met, she had a white blaze on her chest and touches of white on her paws, with a bit of white around her muzzle.
On January 26, 1987 I helped some friends move into a new house. While I was out, my wife Julia went to look at the Lab/Springer Spaniel puppies she read about in a classified ad. One puppy stood out, and Julia brought her home to meet me and the cats, Aretha and Kissa. While Aretha and Kissa met their new housemate with vigorous objection, I was too tired from the move to do anything but welcome the pup home.
After a few days of discussing various names, we settled on Nola, based on character in a movie. Nola, we later learned, sounds too much like "no" to be a good dog's name, but it was the name of a good dog.
Nola joined our family in my first year of law school. For the better part of the next 2 1/2 years she and I spent part of each afternoon after my classes walking around Duke's East Campus with a dozen or two close canine pals. Dog club, as it was called, introduced Nola to many friends, and was often the highlight of my day.
While she was still a young puppy, Julia and I threw a party. Nola felt right at home at her first big event, and spent the whole night greeting people, being patted and licking her new friends. Finally, when all her activity proved too much for such a young pup, she collapsed asleep in a milk crate full of to-be-recycled newspapers.
The first summer with Nola I spent clerking in Richmond Virginia. I lived in a house with two other law clerks and a dog named Deacon (as in Wake Forest). Nola commuted with Julia and I up and down from Durham each weekend; sometimes she'd stay with me in Richmond for the week, enjoying the chips Bill and Lee gave her each night. I think that summer in Richmond is when Nola first got her taste for people food, a taste which didn't leave her until recently.
On a road trip one weekend that summer Julia and I stopped at friends Anne & George's house near DC to visit and meet their puppy. Nola and Cammie (as in Cameron Indoor Stadium) enjoyed a fine afternoon romping in George's backyard. Nola taught Cammie some of the tricks of the puppy trade, and Cammie did as good a job as any of fatiguing Nola for the remainder of the drive.
Nola proved an excellent friend and mother to the numerous dogs and cats we fostered in our home for some time before the Durham APS acquired its own facility. For better or for worse she taught Jackson and Duster everything they know, for which my sister Beth and my siblings-in-law Vicky and Ken will forever remain appreciative.
As I write this Nola is preparing to leave us. She may go tonight, maybe tomorrow. We'll be surprised if she makes Christmas or the new year. She stopped eating her regular food a couple of weeks ago, which made it difficult to give her the several pills she needs each day for her heart condition. Switching to canned food helped for a while, but in the last few days she's hardly eaten anything. We had our annual Christmas cookie party this past Sunday. In past years Nola happily took advantage of the situation and scavenged the dropped food from the dozens of children who came to play each year and the offerings from the adults eating their ham and turkey. This year however, after staying inside for an hour or two early in the party and refusing almost all handouts (including a meaty ham bone), Nola left the house to lie outside in the cold rain. She had neither the energy nor the appetite for the party.
A few months back she had mustered both for our last big event. We hosted a neighborhood pig picking, and, although Nola's heart was already failing, she spent most of the party visiting with the guests and cleaning up bits of barbecue all over our backyard. The effort must have been exhausting for her, because she barely moved for three days afterwards. I like to think she spent the time digesting the big hunks of pig she managed to scavenge from the crowd and reliving her most successful finds.
Unfortunately, since the Christmas party Nola's been going downhill fast. In the past few weeks she's taken to spending most of her time outside, even in the cold weather. She's lost so much weight over the last month that she has no insulation to keep her warm. Her skin drapes loosely on her newly bony frame, showing both the thinness of her limbs and the distortion caused by her swollen heart and fluid filled belly. For a dog who rarely ever missed a meal and never met the table scrap she didn't like, it's a shocking and sad change.
When we can coax Nola in from the cold we try to get her to eat, but she's turning her head away at everything now. The closest she's come to eating anything was when she met our contractor Will King at the door yesterday and wagged her tail when he asked if she wanted a cookie. He gave her a rawhide with which she trotted off, but that was only for show. I saw her holding it in her mouth this morning, unchewed. I guess the spirit is still willing, but the flesh is too weak.
On her rare visits inside we try to warm Nola up. She comes in shivering with gums unnaturally cold to the touch. But all too soon she wants to head back outside to the comfort the outdoors brings her. It's scary and confusing to us. We want to give her warmth and comfort; she wants some solace only outside brings.
Tonight we called to her at bedtime to come in. We hadn't seen her for several hours, and our concern grew as she didn't respond. Grabbing a flashlight Julia and I went outside to hunt for our mostly black dog in the darkness. As we walked in our driveway I heard a sound I thought too small to come from our big dog, but Julia saw that it was Nola curled in the undergrowth. Huddled against the cold, she looked up at us as we came near. Slowly I helped her up and we guided her inside.
First she lay down in a quiet corner behind our couch, but she couldn't find comfort there. She moved sullenly to the front door and lay down against it. Her breath came too quickly and too hard, and we could see the beat of her swollen heart shaking her enlarged chest and belly.
She's added more white over the years; her muzzle is mostly white, and it shows on her legs and under her tail. Underneath her loose skin she's become a small, frail dog. Her reserves are gone, and she can't cope with her failing heart much longer. Tonight, for the first time, we faced the serious possibility of having to choose when her time would come.
Julia's gone to bed now, having said her good-byes to Nola. She doesn't expect Nola to still be with us in the morning. I'm afraid Julia's right, and I'm just as afraid she's wrong. Just in case Julia's right I'm going now to say my good-byes. If not we'll face other decisions in the morning.
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It's a few days later now. Nola hasn't eaten in a week, and it has become harder for her to stand up. She no longer greets us when we drive up the driveway; she stays on the grass or the bushes where she has curled up. This morning we let her out, and after a short tour of the neighbor's house she settled onto the yard in one of her favorite spots. When we went to her, she rolled submissively onto her side.
I called the boys into our bedroom to let them know it was time. We discussed Nola's life and remembered some of the good times. Matthew especially remembered going to Nola when he was lonely. Wyatt hugged Nola and remembered her warmth when it was cold. Connor loves Nola, but he's too young to know what's going on or to remember.
The boys chose not to go with us to the vets. After we explained euthanasia to them Matthew thought he would be too sad and scared to see Nola die.
It was sad, but it wasn't scary. Julia and I brought Nola into an examining room and waited for the vet, Don, to come in. Never one to enjoy vet visits, Nola pulled toward the door while we waited, but she didn't have enough strength left to change our unhappy decision. Don came in and explained that Nola would first get a sedative, then a lethal dose of barbiturates. After signing a few forms, I lifted Nola for the last time onto the examination table.
After the first injection, Nola relaxed and laid down on her side. As the barbiturates were injected, she gradually relaxed more and more, until her body was limp. Don listened closely to the last beats of her failing heart as Julia and I stroked and patted our longtime companion. After a short time Don told us she was gone. I looked at her lying on her side on the table. She was too close to one edge and I feared she would move and roll off. Unfortunately, she was gone and she would move no more.
We closed Nola's eyes and Don helped clip some of Nola's fur as Matthew had requested. We chose a mix of the soft black and white fur from her chest. We were silent as he clipped some away and put in a bag for us. In a few days we'll get her cremains. We'll take a walk on our street and sprinkle her ashes around the places she liked to stop as we walked. Those ashes and a few clippings will be all the tangible remains of our loving dog, but she will be forever in our hearts.
On the way to the vets this morning, Julia noted the irony of Nola dying because of a bad heart, when she had always loved us and the animals and people she met. I agreed, but I pointed out that the problem was that Nola's heart was too big. Even though it had grown a couple of sizes too large, it didn't give her the strength of ten Grinches.
It's six days until Christmas. Just as we'll always have a special place in our hearts for Nola, this is the time of year you should remember to keep a special place in your hearts for your loved ones, whether they have two legs or four, or hair, feathers or fur.
This didn't start out as a Christmas greeting, but it's ending that way. Treasure the holidays and the pets and people in your lives, and always remember to never forget. Happy holidays.
Bye girl. We'll see you at the Rainbow Bridge. (http://www.petloss.com/rainbowb.htm)
Rob, Julia, Matthew, Wyatt & Connor